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“Big” and the Body-Swap Movie Renaissance

I had a piece in The Atlantic this afternoon on Big and the other body-swap movies (Vice Versa, 18 Again!, Like Father, Like Son) of the late ’80s. Here is an excerpt:

The dominant, lasting image in all these films is that of a grown man acting like a child. In Big, Vice Versa, and Like Father, Like Son, the lead characters transform corporate workplaces with their youthful exuberance. Essentially, these characters are yuppie analogues, thrust into positions of power too soon and struggling to hide their inexperience. They must have been easy to relate to for the young people who were making huge amounts of money in the 1980s and spending it on toys: pinball machines inBig, cocaine and cars in real life.